by Nevil Shute
“Oh ...” she said. “You can’t do that. It’s not safe.”
I took my glass and helped myself to another whisky.
“It’s not safe to sit here doing nothing,” I said shortly. “I could work out that scheme all right. If anyone’s got a better one, let’s have it.”
“That might work all right for a day or two,” said Compton slowly. “It doesn’t appeal to me much. But you couldn’t possibly keep it up; if you laid a strong enough trail to direct their attention to you they’d get you long before the 18th.”
I shot the whisky down and felt better. “I can fix that all right,” I said. “And incidentally, I’ll get you over to France at the end of that time if you want to go.”
He eyed me steadily. “How would you do that?”
I set down my glass, feeling more myself than I had since the crash. “What I think of doing is this,” I said slowly. “I start off from here and lay a trail to the coast — to Devonshire. I take two days getting down there, perhaps three. I can do that. I can fix it so that they’re damn certain they’re tracing you, and I can do it without being caught myself. In Devonshire I pick up a seven-ton yacht, the Irene, belonging to a pal of mine, and get away to sea on her.”
“Oh ...” said Compton.
I thought for a little. “That would be about the 9th,” I said. “I’d have to leave a pretty clear trail to show which way I’d gone, and get away to sea. Then I’d simply have keep at sea till the 18th; it’s a long time to be single-handed in a small vessel, but I can do it all right. On the evening of the 18th I stand inshore, pick you up, and trot you over to France. Then I think I should cruise on up Channel for a bit to throw off the scent, and come back a week or so later.”
“It’s possible,” said Compton. “Where would you pick me up?”
“The best place would be the Helford River,” I said.
“That’s near Falmouth, you know.”
We discussed the details of the business for half an hour or so. At last I got fed up.
“Well, there it is,” I said. “It’s a perfectly sound scheme and it’ll get you out of the country as soon as you’ve finished whatever it is you want to do.” I looked at my watch; it was a quarter to one. “If I’m going to start off on this I must be well away from here by dawn,” I said. “Now, what is it to be?”
Nobody spoke for a bit, and then Joan Stevenson said: “I can’t see why you should do all this for us, Mr Stenning.”
“Better to be doing this than to be dead,” I said. I turned to the telephone. “That’s settled then. Now, I’ve got one or two things to fix up before I go. May I use your phone?”
We tied a table napkin round the bell to prevent it from ringing and then I got down to it. First I rang up Dorman, the owner of the Irene. He lives in a residential club near Marble Arch; they told me on the phone that he was out dancing and wasn’t back yet. I left a message for him to ring me up, and impressed its urgency on the porter.
Then I rang up Morris. It was no use trying the aerodrome at that time of night, of course, so I rang him at his home. The exchange said they couldn’t get any answer, but I kept them at it and got him in the end. He sounded pretty sleepy.
“Hullo, Morris,” I said, “having a good night? This is Stenning speaking — Stenning. Look here, I’m not coming back to work for a bit — I’m taking three weeks’ holiday. What? No, I’m not coming back to London at all. I’m tired to death. I can’t go on flying like this. I don’t care a damn about that. I’m sending you a report of the crash that you can send on to the Ministry. If you think I’m coming up to Town simply to fill in one of your pink leave forms you’re ruddy well mistaken. I’m taking this leave on medical grounds. I’m not fit to fly for a bit. I told you I wasn’t fit. Now I’m going off for three weeks, as soon as I’ve sent you my report. No, I’m damned if I will.”
He asked where I was speaking from.
“Giggleswick,” I said at random, and rang off.
I turned to the girl. “May I have some paper and a pen, please?” I said. “To write that report.” I crossed to the table and took another whisky. “Then I shall want you to cut my hair for me, if you will.”
She brought me the paper from another room and I settled down at the table to write my report, the glass at my elbow. Compton and the girl sat by the fire close together, talking earnestly in a low tone. I didn’t pay much attention to them, but concentrated my attention on putting my report into official language for the benefit of the Ministry. Their conversation put me off; I never was very good at letter writing, and I don’t suppose I was at my best that evening. I didn’t try to follow what they were saying, but the name Mattani came up over and over again; it had a staccato ring that stood out clearly in their low murmurs. I finished my report at last, read it through, and was annoyed to find that I had said that the engine failed completely at a point about three miles south of Marazan. For a moment I stared at it blankly, wondering if Marazan was a place or a person. Then I struck it out, and wrote in Stokenchurch.
I put the report in an envelope, addressed it to Morris, and gave it to Joan Stevenson to post in the morning. Then I sat down in a chair and she cut my hair; for a first attempt she made a pretty good job of it. When she had finished I went and looked at myself in the glass.
“I believe this is going to work all right,” I said.
Then she got some warm water and bathed the cut over my eyebrow for me. It was a pretty deep cut, one that would serve to identify me for the remainder of my life, but it wasn’t bleeding and it looked healthy enough. She washed it in something that stung me up all right; then she put a bit of clean lint on it and stuck it up with plaster again. Then I changed clothes with Compton. When that was done I went and had another look at myself in the glass.
I was surprised at the change. With my hair cropped and the clothes that Compton had been wearing I really wasn’t at all a bad imitation of him. Joan Stevenson was busy with another meal; I sat down at the table, wrote out a cheque to her for thirty pounds, and gave it to her to cash in the morning. We agreed that she should post the money to “Mr E. C. Gullivant, The Post Office, Exeter — to await arrival.” I had about eight pounds on me, which would carry me to Exeter.
Then Dorman rang up.
“Is that Dorman?” I said. “Stenning speaking — yes, Stenning. I say, I want to borrow the Irene for a bit. Yes. I’d like to take her on charter if I may — I want her for about three weeks. No, really, if you can spare her I’d rather have her that way. I’ll give you six guineas. You’re sure you don’t need her? All right. Now, I want her at once; I want to start the day after tomorrow if I can. She’s at Salcombe? I know it’s pretty short notice. You’ll telegraph to Stevens about her? Good man. Look. Tell him to fill her up full of water, will you? And about two stone of potatoes. The rest of the stuff I’ll have to get in Salcombe.”
Joan Stevenson touched me on the arm. “Tell him that I’ll go down and provision her for you,” she said. “You won’t be able to.”
I covered the transmitter and did some rapid thinking. It would be very convenient to find the vessel already provisioned and ready for sea; at the same time, the girl must be kept out of it.
“You won’t have time to get any food,” she said. “They’ll be after you by that time. I’ll go down tomorrow and fix up everything, if you’ll tell me what to do.”
“Then they’ll get you.”
“No, they won’t. I’ll be back in London twelve hours before you get to Salcombe.”
I uncovered the transmitter. “I say, Dorman,” I said. “There’s a cousin of mine here, a Miss Fellowes, who’s going down to Salcombe to buy the stores for me and put them on board. Tell Stevens to expect a lady with the stores tomorrow or on Friday. Yes, old Stevens knows me. What? Oh, I’m sorry to hear that. What did he die of? Really. I’m very sorry. I don’t think I know the son. Anyway, you’ll tell him to expect me the day after tomorrow and to expect a lady first with the grub. It’s all
right — I’m not taking the lady on board. I won’t do anything to sully the fair name of the Irene. Oh, just up and down the Channel — I’ve got a holiday sudden-like. You’ll telegraph first thing in the morning? Right you are. Good night.”
I rang off and turned to Joan Stevenson. “Bit of luck there,” I said. “The boatman doesn’t know me. Now look here. I said I’d be there the day after tomorrow — that’s Friday. I probably shan’t get there till the Saturday, but it will keep them up to the scratch if they think I’m coming earlier than I am. Can you go down there tomorrow?”
She nodded. “I can say I’m going up to London for a night,” she said. “I often do that. Then I can catch an express at Reading and be there by tomorrow night.”
“That spendid,” I said. The whisky had killed my fatigue and my mind was in good form for once. I pulled a sheet of notepaper towards me and set to work with her to make a list of the things that she had to get in Salcombe and put on board the Irene.
Twenty minutes later I turned to her. “Now you’ve got to get all that on board on Friday morning,” I said. “You’ve got to catch an afternoon train back to Town. I want to make that pretty clear, please. Anything that you can’t buy or that you haven’t got time to get you must leave to the boatman, Stevens. I don’t want there to be any mistake about that. You’ve got to be out of Salcombe and on your way back to London by two o’clock on Friday. That ought to give you a clear day in which to get away before things start to get warm there. On the other hand, I may be pressed and have to run for Salcombe ahead of my schedule. I may want to get to sea on Friday. If I get there and find you in the neighbourhood still I shall have to dodge back on my tracks. That may be unfortunate for me.”
She nodded. “I’ll be away by two o’clock,” she said.
“Right. Now there’s one thing more. The Irene will be lying in the Bay probably — that’s up the river. I want you to see her brought down to her summer anchorage off the jetty. Tell the boatman that I want her there in order that I can get off at once. See that done yourself: it’s important. And remember, your name is Miss Fellowes, and I’m your cousin.”
I made her repeat her instructions till I was sure she had them perfect, and then I sat down and had a meal. She offered to make me some coffee, but I refused that, had another whisky, and followed it down with a couple of plates of cold ham. One thing she got me, though, that went down well, and that was a little bottle of aspirin. I took four or five of them and they eased off my headache a bit, so that by the time I’d finished my meal I was very nearly fit.
I looked at my watch; it was a little after three. I lit a pipe and strolled to the window. It was a wonderful night. The clouds and the wind were all gone and there was a full moon dying down upon the horizon, big and red. Faint, earthy, flowery smells came in from the garden, and away in the field there was something squeaking plaintively, continuously, as it had been while I was waiting to enter the house. I leaned on the window-sill smoking and wondering what should be my first move; it was clear that I must begin operations at a considerable distance from Stokenchurch. It seemed to me that Abingdon, five miles south of Oxford, would be a good place to lay my first red herring; it was fully twenty-five miles away and on my road to Salcombe.
The curtain was pulled aside and Compton came and stood staring beside me. He didn’t speak, but stood there staring moodily out over the garden, his hands in his pockets. And presently I heard him mutter to himself: “The New Utopia....”
“Eh?” said I. “What’s that?”
He didn’t answer, but began to ask me how I was going to pick him up at the Helford River. I told him about a little beach that there is there close to the entrance; we fixed that I should be there from eleven o’clock till three on the night of the 18th-19th, and again, if he didn’t turn up, on the night of the 19th-20th. If he weren’t there then I would give it up and return to Salcombe.
He understood what he was to do all right, but for the rest he was distrait and moody. I knew all the time that I was talking to him that I held only a part of his attention; he seemed incapable of concentrating his mind on the measures that I was working out for his own safety. I am surprised that this didn’t irritate me; as it is, I can only remember thinking how woefully unfitted he was for the business that he had taken on. I was sorry for him, I think.
He roused himself at last and turned from the window. “I’d have done better on a pig farm,” he said, a little bitterly.
For the moment I didn’t quite see what he was driving at. “I’ve always thought myself that there was money in pigs if you go about it the right way,” I said. “But it needs a good bit of capital. And they say there’s a lot in the breed — more than you’d think. I was talking to a man at Amesbury about it last month.”
He looked at me curiously. “I always had a great fancy to keep pigs,” he said. “Live-stock of all sorts — but pigs in particular. I don’t know why. My grandfather was the same. I used to look forward to it as a thing that I might do when I retired from business. I suppose I hadn’t the courage to break off into it when I was young.”
He paused for a minute, and then he said: “Shall I ever be able to come back to England?”
I knew that the girl was watching us; I could feel her looking at me for my reply, I couldn’t see her, but I knew that she would be standing very straight, looking straight at me from her grave, deep eyes. I knew then what it was that embarrassed me whenever she spoke to me, something that I suppose I had never met in a girl before. Behind her were centuries of tradition, the traditions of a good college, of a good regiment, of a good club. She could have answered his question so much better than I could — but then, I don’t suppose he’d have paid much attention to her.
I checked the emphatic negative, and turned to him. “Man alive,” I said slowly, “you’ve been a ruddy fool over this. What on earth made you break prison?”
He was going to speak, but I stopped him. “I don’t know what it is that you’ve got on hand,” I said, “and I don’t want to. If all goes well we can get you out of the country all right. But — is it worth it?”
He didn’t speak, but stood staring out into the dim shadow of the woods. I went on:
“You’ll never be able to come back to England now, you know, unless it’s under a false name.” It was as if I had been speaking to a child. “You’ve done with England. Your best line — the one that I should try if I were you — is to try and ship before the mast on a French vessel. Become a sailor for a year or two and see where that takes you to. Maybe you’ll end up in America. But you’ve done with England.”
“Yes,” he said quietly, “I’ve done with England.”
“There’s the alternative,” I said.
“What’s that?”
I knocked my pipe out sharply upon the window-sill. “That you should go back and finish your sentence,” I said. “When you’ve finished it, set up a piggery somewhere here in the south. There’s money in that. In that case I’ll borrow the car and run you up to Scotland Yard in the morning. Don’t think that I’m suggesting this because I’m lazy.”
I turned round and saw the girl standing close behind us. “Don’t you think that would be the best thing to do?” she said.
He shook his head. “I can’t do that,” and from his tone I knew that that was final.
“Right you are,” I said. “It’s time that I was starting. I must be well away from here by daylight.”
The girl produced a rucksack from a cupboard; I had decided that I would pose as an art student or somebody of that sort on a walking tour. I chose an art student because I had knocked about a bit with them in their less artistic moments both in London and Paris, and I knew enough of the jargon to pass with anyone but an artist. The girl helped me to pack the bag with the convict suit and one or two things that she thought would come in handy, including an immense packet of ham sandwiches that she had been cutting all evening.
As she bent over the thing on the f
loor, tightening its straps, she leaned towards me. “It was frightfully good of you to say that,” she muttered.
“I’m only sorry that he won’t do it,” I said.
She tugged at a strap. “You mustn’t think it’s going to be any easier for him this way,” she said. “I do wish he could tell you about it. You’ve been such a good friend to us.”
We finished with the rucksack. Then we tidied up the room as well as we could, and made sure that there was no trace of Compton left behind us. We couldn’t entirely do away with all evidence that the room had been occupied; the girl would have to see to that with the maids. Then we got out of the window, closed it quietly behind us, and went round to the garage. We had to be pretty quiet here to avoid waking the servants; for silence we pushed the car outside the gate and a hundred yards down the lane. There we started her up, got in, and trundled off for Oxford.
It was about half past four. The girl drove and I sat with Compton in the back seat. He was deep in his own thoughts; for a while he tried absently to make conversation, but soon relapsed into a silence that stretched unbroken through the miles. I remember he asked me if I had any ties in particular, if I was married or engaged.
“Lord, no,” I said. “Nothing like that about me.”
I think he may have learned more from the tone in which I spoke than from my words, because he nodded slowly.
“There’s safety in numbers,” he said. “And it’s really the happiest way, I suppose. Just take what you can get, and be thankful.” He relapsed into silence again, but something in the way he said that had given me a nasty start. It may have been that I was tired. It may have been that it was the sanest, most horrible hour of the twenty-four, when the cold grey dawn comes creeping up over the fields and means the beginning of another blasted day. I only know that my whole life was summed up in those words of his. I only know that they’ve come back to me time after time, and always with the same bitter ring in them. “Take what you can get,” he said, “and be thankful.”
